Can you believe...

...this is the little girl who crawled around on her blanket in the big group TA office??
(Jim, Olivia and Rose at Rose & John's home)

Get Together in Seattle

I have been tasked with organizing a get together for the Seattlite contingent (and any nearby Seattle who'd like to join us!)

So I'm wondering about dates in mid January...Rose, Don, Jim, Elizabeth...are there any dates we need to eliminate right off the bat? What about Saturday, January 19th? Would that work?

Should we gather at someone's home? Volunteers?

"Life is short; don't die in Wisconsin."

Q: What could be better than coffee with Elizabeth?
A: Lunch (but there wasn't time for that)

what do you mean?

I just read your review of The Meat and Spirit Plan after reading the actual book The Meat and Spirit Plan. I thought it was one of the best books I'd read in awhile. What was it exactly about the ending that you hated?
You wrote: "I can only hope that Saterstrom’s final paragraphs were forced upon her by the demonseed lovechild of M. Night Shamalamadingdong and Gordon Lish, because, really, I could have stomached “and then I woke up” better."
Discuss.

Poems, Prayers and Promises

Elizabeth wandered over to my personal blog, and I couldn't figure a quicker way than this to respond to her question. Hey, E! 'Sup? I wrote a review (of sorts) of The Meat and Spirit Plan for Rivet Magazine's blog. I had high expectations for it because I've loved every novel I've read from that press, but it disappointed me. I was so ready to like it and got lost in the dreamy nihilistic worldview. I'll give her first a try some time.

And, to y'all, I've been working on what I was trying to get to in the nostalgia discussion. I fell in haste to the shorthand of media (just the most malleable metaphor for me), but it is a lot more, bringing in discussion of dogmatic religion and big T Truth, even perhaps getting a bit New Agey with habits of mind. But, anyway, I'm working on it between beeing driven insane by my kid and promoting stuff like this.

Hope y'all are doing well. Oh, good suggestion for holiday downtime cozy read - The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. Gardener and journalist walks through a natural history/ethnobotany of four plants - apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. Excellent. I'm left forever with the image of hydro pot growing operations as a field of sexually-frustrated and ever-enlarging green clitorises.

And how could that not be a good holiday read?

[The title is as to what holiday show I'll soon be seeing in Seattle, and you should, too.]

Andrew's Early December 513 Haiku

I'm a week early, but I found this while looking for something else, and it was too good of a find to keep to myself:

Alphabutterflies
Wings wafting over paper
what wind do I blow

and the ever-wonderful limerick:

A graduate student named Morgan
Wrote a paper like a chimeric gorgon
and when mom and dad read
they said, "The boy's lost his head!"
but the Prof said, "No. He's protecting his organ."

you may now return to your life, already in progress. :)

Who spelled Foucault wrong?

The Road to Whatever: Middle-Class Culture and the Crisis of Adolescence

Have any of you read this book? I saw it in the UW bookstore recently, but didn't want to shell out the $26 to own it. It seems intriguing and after a couple of years with a teenager in my home I'm really curious to see if this guy's argument is compelling...anyone? anyone? If it is a worthy read, it seems like it would be a worthy read for teachers too...is there hope that you can reach the disengaged kid in the corner with the hood of his/her hoody up?

Musicophilia; Tales of Music and The Brain

As we cupped our cold fingers around 20 oz containers of decaf and wished we'd thought to bring hats, I strained to see Rose and John in the ever growing line of people waiting over an hour in the wind and rain to hear Oliver Sacks read from his new book at the Seattle Central Library. He read to a greater-than-capacity crowd. He is as charming as you've imagined (if you've imagined what he'd be like in person).

You must all put his latest book on your reading lists. It's a nice mental shift (for me at least) to consider a passion from a neurological perspective. It's also fascinating to see the spectrum of just how far wrong our brains can go when it comes to something as intrigal to the human experience as music.

I'm only on page 66, but so far the book is typical Sacks: charming, kind, gracious and unendingly interesting. I'd offer to send you my copy when I finish, but my mom has already called "dibs". :)

The Inheritance of Loss- recommended by Kyle

Kyle, thanks for recommending The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. I very much enjoyed it. The language was luscious, and I found the politics of the place interesting. I read much of it during my commute and today. I spent most of my Saturday reading--it was wonderful!
Speaking of politics, there's an essay by Mark Danner in the 2007 best essays called Iraq: The War of the Imagination which outlines the steps that led us into Iraq. It doesn't offer a solution or a suggest a solution (which was a disappointment), but I thought it was the most useful piece I've read on a what has been a confusing issue for me.
My next book in line is The Zoo Keeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman. I plan to read it on my plane ride to Denver. I have a work thing there this week. I am SO much looking forward to seeing Anne and my sister while I am there. And I very much like Denver.

And sadly, I missed Oliver Sacks visit to Seattle on Friday (I had a work event) and I missed Ann Patchett too b/c she read during the day, and I was at work then too. But I am anxious to get my hands on a copy of her new book, Run. I have seen Lynda, Jessica, Don, and Jim all quite recently- so count me the luckiest one of all! Aren't some of the rest of you overdue for a Seattle trip. It's raining....

Greetings from the new home of Cryptococcus gattii, the deadly tropical fungus just in from BC

I'm sure you'll all be jealous to know, I've just gone to (and procured 10 pounds of honeycrisp apples from) the Bellingham Farmer's Market. This time of year it's a little more scant than summer's fare, but still worth the walk for fresh vegetables and good bread (and a balloon animal from the weird clown dude, if you're into that kind of thing). I'm certain I saw more dreadlocks today than most of you have seen in months.

But, to be brief, I wanted to let you all know of a few places online my work has featured...

This week the new Front Porch Journal is out at www.frontporchjournal.com - I'm under Fiction, but it's all good stuff (regrettably, I'm the only one featured on the website that currently does not have a book, but I'm hoping to change this soon). Oh, and C and I submitted and were accepted entirely without the other's knowledge (or FPJ's knowledge of our coupledom). This, our first time in print together. Hoorah. Hopefully not the last.

Also, check me out at www.juked.com - I'm under September's selections, but it's probably still on the main page as well. And on 3:AM Magazine online. I think that was in September too: www.3ammagazine.com.

If I mention the print stuff you probably won't go out and buy it anyway, so...

testing

This is just a test; I invited myself so I'm posting to see if this shows up as a Lynda post...
and just so that this isn't an empty post, let me encourage all of you to see the film "The Lives of Others"...I thought it was really wonderful (we rented it at Blockbuster).

Curry & Conversation

Hello from Seattle!

I had the lovely opportunity to have dinner with Jessica, Don, Christine, Rose and John last evening. We talked about Inter-something-something currency (Don: that's my Homer Simpson immitation of a grad school fake. Whatcha think?), Oliver Sacks (who is reading here this Friday), work, vacations, whether or not we have permission to stop reading a book when we aren't enjoying it :) and shared stories from our lives.

I'm pleased to share with you that Don and Christine are both vibrant and delightful; full of stories of the pleasures and weirdnesses of attending the UW, Rose and John are as wonderful as ever (Rose looks particularly great these days) and Jessica is her charming, graceful self and seemed peaceful (she's the one on vacation).

We had fun remembering stories from school and it was both encouraging (in terms of validating what a great group we are) and discouraging (in terms of ever wanting to go back for my PhD) to hear Don's stories about the degree of community with his peers at the U.

We forgot to bring a camera; so no picture, sorry. Next time, I promise to take mine.

~Lynda

Laughing with Jim & Kyle

I need to make dinner before I pass out from hunger, so I can't respond to anything but the first line of Kyle's post.

I can't laugh at that, but it did remind me of going for whiskey afterward and THAT was fun! :)

From Lynda (I give up trying to be clever with blog titles :) )

Kyle, OF COURSE you're allowed typos. I have typos all the time and I don't have a Regan era computer (I'm just lazy). I wanted to clarify because your typo significantly altered the meaning of your sentence and I genuinely didn't know what you meant. :)

I don't CLING to that primary assumption, but I do filter with it...and it seems to serve me rather reliably.

So, what do you understand as "intellectual work".

I realized, after I posted that there are those among us who work in the field of marketing, and I do not mean to imply that they don't do intellectual work at work - what I meant to say is that I'm not convinced that it's a conscious conspiracy of hegemonic forces to pass out bread and circus tickets, I think what drives marketing is the race for the almighty dollar. I think the fact that it ends up being bread and circus tickets is secondary to the race for a larger share of the target demographic...which is why they have the partidge family theme to sell a van to drive your family around in: people my age have families they need to drive around and need room to put the patio bricks from home depot so they can renovate their back yard (ok, I don't have a family or a back yard, but you know what I'm saying). They use hip hop music to sell Scions because the target demographic for that car is the twenty somethings. (and Ford has a history of using generations to sell their trucks. Does anyone beside me remember the old commercial with four generations of a family who owned ford trucks because their dad had one? the last was an old dude in a rocking chair next to a model T ford: "My dad came across in a covered wagon, I had to learn about ford trucks all by myself. I'm a smart old bird ain't I? Heh heh heh." Now they use Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs to sell their trucks; which I see as being along the same lines; Dirty jobs is a show that crosses generational boundaries: kids and adults like watching that show...)

Now I'm going to tabulate bids on a sewer pump station renovation and think about what Jim said. (Jim! I'm so glad you've joined us!)

There JJ goes doing his media thing again!

Can we laugh about that yet?

I agree with almost all of your points except one: that the 90's isn't getting re-articulated in pop-culture. Think, for example, of the "surreal life" on VH1 whose cast is a veritable cornucopia of boy-band members, has-been rappers/rockers, old-models and wwf wrestlers (sure, there are 80's folk in there too!).

I think the decade will be remembered as the grunge/gangsta rap/boyband/desert storm/Clinton scandal/big dollar movie budget era (ah the good ole' days). In fact, I think there is plenty already circulating in the datasphere to suggest that the 90's is in play and ready to be appropriated.

I guess I should confess, too, that I am not inclined to read power the same way you are - referring to it as "the hierarchy" - its a little too base/superstructure for my taste, but I take your point if by hierarchy you are referring to the monopolization of the media, which I suspect you are.

Anyway, its nice to have you around to argue with again, I miss you sorely. Hope all is well!
KJ

Ah, what the hell

I feel like I’m coming so late to the conversation, clambering my way up the list of emails then posts, stopping to catch a vista and formulate a witty aside response that is immediately lost in the effort of further climbing.

So, fuck it, I’ll just dive in with some thoughts.

I don’t think nostalgia is a static phenomena, but one that has always existed and has radically evolved.

And I think it is always a tool of hierarchy. It provides the structural anchor for manipulations of narrative, can always postulate the past as in some way “ideal” and harness the association to support the hierarchical structure.

The power in the equation is the postulation, is the manipulation of the narrative of the past. It would have been a more clumsy weapon to wield when nostalgia couldn’t be defined by a decade, when it was the amorphous “before” time, where the stories of oral cultures lived. Those stories evolve glacially. And yet they still operate as the moral foundation for control.

As media (here including the oral tradition and maybe best understood, just for my purpose at the moment, as that with which we share stories) evolved, the stories were written, coded, and easier to hack than a storyteller’s brain.

The process speeds up with each advance in media technology. The printing press spread a (relatively) singular account of the Biblical times, to which the less-powered could be pointed. The birth of the novel allowed periods of time to be more clearly defined, provided even finer targets for the backward search for wish-fulfillment. At some point, a nearly wholly-fictitious American West was created, perhaps the first narrative of nostalgic control cut of whole cloth.

But, it has reached some critical mass in the last forty years. While the counter-culture was brewing up in the 60’s, mainstream media narratives were still dominated by social models from the 50’s. The 70’s? Three words. Happy-fucking-Days. The Glory Days were holding on for dear life.

The 80’s aren’t a bad place for the start of the fracturing. I wonder if anything of huge cultural significance happened early on in that decade? Wait, wait, that channel that used to play music videos. I’d even go so far as to argue that the shift was so huge it took the beings of hierarchy to figure out how to hack it. Maybe eight years or so. And seeds of regional narrative development took hold.

By the end of the 80s and into the early 90s, pop culture stopped being quite so monolithic. To say “the 90’s” carries less clear significance than any of the previous back to the 20s.

Anyway, here we are now, 17 years into an array of narrative-creating devices, all of the most potent in the hands of the hierarchy, who use those devices to brand decades, to create nostalgic feelings in those they want to look back so as to prevent them looking forward. Kids appropriate because they’ve been chasing the cool for so long, and the marketers so deft at manipulating the leading edge of it, cultural appropriation is easier than the chase, they stop trying to define because they’ve seen meaning constantly mutated, never without a mediating anchor.

That’s why it pisses us off and we call it inauthentic. We believe our personal feeling of nostalgia is unmediated. Maybe it is. Pot, the short-circuiter of short-term memory, which grounds you in the moment while making universal archetypes of everything, is an anti-heirarchical drug, maligned by every power structure ever, perhaps because it hacks the mediation.

Wait, where was I?

Sorry, I haven’t gotten to do this kind of thing in a long time. So forgive the rambling and, perhaps, utter lack of a central point or coherent idea. I'm not going to back to read all this nonsense to find out.

JJ

Illinois, the land of broken technology . . .

[sigh] I typed that post using a computer in my office that was outdated in the Reagan era. I literally type and 5 minutes later it catches up, plus I had to go teach. Am I not allowed a typo?

a_subversive should be the *correct* phrase

Although, I feel like the first sentence of your post sounds like a line from Rocky I (from the 80's!) as in "Yo, Adrianne."

My answer to your question would be, no, but I have a very different understanding of what constitutes "intellectual" work.

When you ask "what about our social structure isn't about bread loaves and circus tickets?" I think "primary assumptions are dangerous"

asubversive WHAT?!

:)

Yo! Kyle my bro! is that a typo?

Do you mean asubversive as in: totally lacking subversion or do you mean a subversive as in: a type of subversive politics of replication?

And then to tweak our minds just a little further I have to ask you this; do you mean to say that you think there is actual intellectual work that goes into marketing for television shows and commercials and it isn't just the handing out of bread and circus tickets? (in fact just last night during a commercial break my sweetheart said to me: "do you ever get the feeling that this is all there to distract us from actual ISSUES?" to which my response was: "I don't just occasionally have that feeling, it is my primary assumption." What about our social structure ISN'T free loaves of bread and circus tickets? That's what I wonder.

Also, in case anyone is keeping track: I saw a commercial last night for a van (chevy maybe?) with the Partridge Family theme song as the background music. We laughed when it came on and sang along. (and just to tie this in to my bread and circus comments: everyone who knows the song, sing along with me: "Everyone get happy!!")

Response

Don't feel inadquate, you weren't then, you aren't now.

What if, instead of thinking about it in authentic/inauthentic terms, you thought of it in terms of how '80s content gets recycled to structure the very response you are having. Or, think of it in this way, two years ago, in an effort to commemorate 9/11 and to garner support for the war, a local newspaper published images from WWII in order to critique (polarize) the community for its lack of national pride. Surely, this move pissed off some people, namely veterans who view such image relics as sacred and belonging to a particular time period. How could they, one could presumably ask, use images that tried to stop something as Evil as Hitler in this type of self-indulgent war about oil and national security. But, you see, in making that move they negate the possibility that that replication is either 1) melancholic or 2) rhetorically functioning to produce that response in order to generate ancillary effects. As it turns out, I am more inclined (able) to read it the second way because I am a rhetorician, because in the second case, you can read the effects such moves have as restoring order. So, you adopt the subject position of someone from a past generation who argues that these teens just don't get it (whatever it is) and are thereby commodifying politically what was meaningful in context. Teens, in turn, can say "it's just a t-shirt" and identify themselves as different than you. In both cases, you are prevented from developing a community on the axis of authentic/inauthentic and thereby unable to harness political action. Except, and here is where Derrida comes in I think, by creating that point of contingency, you don't necessarily have to draw that conclusion. By re-articulating the point of contact, you could create disorder and thus exert some agency.

But you are right, Linda, the 80's was forged from a system of difference, just as the 70's, 60's, 50's and so on were. But, I don't hear you getting irritated about the tv show American Dreams, or remakes of I Dream of Genie. So, these melancholic repetitions are only noticed, in so far as you identify yourself as a part of a particular generation, which again, produces order, and in my view, thwarts political action.

It's all inauthentic, if by that we mean replicated. The goal becomes to figure out asubversive politics of replications, which, as it turns out, I am working on.

Ack!

Ok, I feel UTTERLY inadequate here...feels just like grad school!

But here's a distinction that I think you're missing Kyle, and which may be at the root of the reaction Jan, Andrew and I are expressing...in the 80's we moved away from the free love and peace movements of the 70's and 60's, we ABHORED the sterotype of the 50's subjugated housewife, we wore different clothes, listened to different music and ran after the almighty dollar as though money was all that would make us happy (or make us feel powerful). We crawled out from under the crippling fear of nuclear annhiliation, the wall came down, and Pink Floyd's music meant more, not less because of it. I'm sure I'm missing some of the cultural recycling that we did, but honestly, in a quick retrospective in my brain (which really ought to be figuring out master documents and styles for a development standard I'm writing) I just don't see it...we traded bell bottoms for peg leg jeans, we traded pencil skirts and blouses for trousers and shirts and ties like men wore. We said: that isn't us, THIS is us.

But the college freshmen are reaching back and saying: this is us too. But they don't have Floyd in them the way we have Floyd in us. The Wall was never up for them...and I just don't get it. In my head they're saying "this is us" without knowing what "this" is...it isn't a reaction against anything - or, more appropriately, I don't see what they're reacting against, it seems much more like a passive: "Huh, this looks cool, I think I'll wear it." or "It's got a good beat and you can dance to it." Or as a friend of mine once said: "That can't be their music: they haven't earned it, they don't deserve it." I don't know that I'm willing to go that far, but what I don't understand is how they can like it when they aren't anchored in it.

I liked Jan's comment about the defiling of music she used to get stoned to; there's a depth to that comment I don't want us to gloss over. That music became part of the tapestry of our lives. It was new when our thoughts and personalities were solidifying and now 18 year olds are cutting up that tapestry and taking bits and pieces and leaving the whole in tatters: I think that alone evokes a reaction, and at the same time I'm not opposed to them cutting up the tapestry, per se, but I get confused about what seems to me to be an attempt to make a collage out of various tapestries rather than weaving their own. It seems so passive to me; there seems to be so little action or even reaction...just this mindless, ipod wearing, sustained individuized personal entertainment.

I suppose I'm blending this notion with my (recent) personal interaction with high schoolers who were trained to follow rules and perform and follow through with tasks, who were celebrated for their mediocrity and who received no training in logic or reason in school. This is who I assume are the people appropriating the culture of the 80s. So to some degree, on a personal level, I'm reacting to that in my thought process.

Flippant Appropriation

Linda, I didn't interpret your comment as flip. I intended to surprise by pairing trauma and '80s impersonation/replication/imitation. And, while one could occupy a contrary position that Desert Storm wasn't a major war, I would argue it has/had traumatic effects. See, for instance, the sixth chapter in Megan Boler's book Feeling Power entitled "License to Feel."

Anyway. Jan's example struck a different chord (in contrast to Drew's anxiety) with me because it drew upon a figure like Lennon who seems situated in the 60's and 70's. So their absence of knowledge should not be conflated with a preoccupation with Cindi Lauper, for instance. To Jan's example, I would ask a quite different question: how the heck have your students not encountered John Lennon given the cultural preoccupation with the currency of his image as a generative peace symbol (see for example his Warholesque face on the recent Darfur-aid CD entitled "Instant Karma") but perhaps more interestingly, how have these students been interpellated to produce affective responses when presented with the contingencies his death? And, how do representations of his death produced affective effects in order to posit a particular trajectory for action and belief?

Ok, so back to the original question about college kids in the 80's . . . well, I wouldn't begin there. I read their fetish as a response to an already established rhetoric that values that type (retro) of articulation of popular culture. The preoccupation with prior "decades" as symptomatic of a different time is certainly not new, and so it seems more interesting to me how this subjectivity, looking retrospectively for what is "cool" and utilizing that past discourse (or representations of it) in order to produce rhetorical effects, continually recycles itself. But there is this curious, and simultaneously occuring, phenomenon where kids replicate the "look" of, for example, Fall Out Boy in order to contemporaneously dentify with them. My favorite is the Friends flashback where Chandler sports a Flock of Seagulls hairstyle. So, I don't know, I would expand the inquiry and begin to locate how commercial jingles and 80's gear is an effect of something more complex- as part of our cultural subjectivities that look backwards in fetishtic, maybe even melancholic ways. But, to be clear, this is all improvisationally and crudely drawn.

KJ

Lynda asks questions

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm delighted by this conversation!

And Kyle, let me apologize for being flip. I was genuinely surprised though by your phrase "the trauma we call the 80s" and part of why is because I lived through it, but part of it is because we were almost the generation who lived without a major war (and one could argue that the surgical precision of Desert Storm precludes it from being declared a major war; which I note only because living through the cold war what we as a cultural group thought of in terms of war was annihilation/nuclear war, and I do not in any way mean to belittle the trauma of those who endured Dessert Storm)

So Kyle, tell me more about identities being forged out of cultural moods...because I think that's precisely what confuses me about this whole phenomenon...I mean; I know the people picking lead-in music for tv shows are probably people in their 30s or 40s, but the college freshmen are who confuse me with their appropriation of a culture that they really don't know the first thing about (a la Jan's story).

Tell me more!

Kyle adds even more

Lynda,

I had something a bit larger than Rod Stewart and rose-colored glasses
in mind when I called attention to the possibility that retro-fetishes
were melancholic. Think of it more in terms of identities forged out
of cultural moods (or the other way around) and then when those moods
shift unexpectedly, you could even say violently, these moods return
in our subjectivities is uneven ways such as a jingle in the Ford
Truck commercials or wherever they are showing up.

That these instances of retro-fetish produce emotional effects such as
pleasure, anger, or anxiety should indicate clearly enough that they
are viable aspects of our subjectivities: we come to define ourselves
or are invited to define ourselves in terms of a decade so that we can
locate ourselves on a cultural spectrum and restore order. Our emails
are clear enough indications of that: if you are from the 80's then
you articulate revile at the appropriation, and thereby locate
yourself in a certain space. If you are born in the 80's you write
about the appropriation of gangsta rap as I did way back in our first
year together, and most recently in a review forthcoming in Computers
and Composition.

All of this is to say that yes, I agree that using trauma to read 80's
retro fetish is a bit reckless given the topics that trauma usually
deals with. However, how else could you explain the return, almost
melancholic presence of past era's in our media? I propose that we
either have to do it in terms of psychoanalysis (which I admittedly
know little about) or in terms of new media theory, which as I said
before, is interested in explaining new media in terms of its
relationship to prior media.

All of this needs to be on the Blog.
KJ

Jan adds to it too

You all have tapped into something that I groan about every time I
inadvertantly catch a commercial while grading my endless stack of papers.
I have found that I am fighting a middle-aged crisis early enough -
what with all the deaths in my family while at WWU and seeing the gray in
my hair and my newfound wrinkles flowing from the corners of my eyes.
To me, its simply a depressing reminder that everything I cherished once
upon a time is now the background noise to a f***ing commercial. To
me, it's as akin to being sinful as possible to desecrate decades of
things I used to get stoned to, simply to sell a friggin' pickup truck.

I graduated high school in 1980, so I have the most room to rant! Even
more depressing, I showed The U.S. vs John Lennon to a freshman class
at Campbell University last week and half of them not only did not know
who the man was, but when the shots fired out at the end of the film,
most of them jumped out of their seats. They had no idea he had been
gunned down and taken from us so early.

But, alas, I got them thinking.....

miss you guys and gals!
Jan

Kyle adds to it

Drew and Lynda - although Derrida would be proud of you (drew) for
generating the term "ghostmodernity," I think what you are discussing
is a necessary condition of remediation, the inscription of prior
media onto "new" media, which is material not spectral.

Of course, you could always go psychoanalytic and call it a
melancholic response to the trauma we call the 80's.

But I was a toddler then so I couldn't really say.

Andrew responds

We've departed from postmodernity only to enter
ghostmodernity!

Lynda responds...

Andrew,
I don't feel adequate to speak to the appropriation of
80's music by the media and college freshmen, but I
was staring at my unread books on my bookcases today
and grabbed Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death
and I think that it speaks to this issue...if only
insofar as it further complicates your question. What
does it say that today's culture is reaching back for
the things the amused previous generations rather than
(or while concurrently) create (creating) their own
amusements? (and what does it say about me that I'm
using someone else's intellectual work from the same
time period to address your question? ;) )
"Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada,
as a metaphor of our national character and
aspiration. . . . For Las Vegas is a city entirely
devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such
proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public
discourse increasingly takes the form of
entertainment. Our politics, religion, news,
athletics, education and commerce have been
transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business,
largely without protest or even much popular notice.
The result is that we are a people on the verge of
amusing ourselves to death." ~Neil Postman
. . . if, in the 80's, we were a people on the verge
of amusing ourselves to death: what's going on now?

Andrew's Delayed Email

the structure of feeling that inspired my initial
subject-heading seems to be growing, or is this just a
gen-x paraonoid reaction (Jim, Linda?)?

that structure is the resurfacing of 80s, and some
late 70s, tunes in the promotion of forthcoming season
premieres on tv: the cure for without a trace, cyndi
lauper for something, everybody wants to rule the
world for kid nation, and it goes on...thoughts??

also, i know this is one of the first signs of
schizophrenia, but it was as if owen wilson was
reading my mind/emails, leaving these millenial stars
to coke-car accidents and meditation retreats in rural
minnesota.

lastly, at rose's prompting, one of the best novels of
my past year:
*Christie Malry's Own Double Entry* by BS Johnson. A
rare gem indeed and certain to reenter circulation in
literature programs!!

A.

Engineering Haiku

I shared this with Kyle a while ago. I thought I'd share with the rest of you:

Sometimes I get bored with work.

Recently I turned a bunch of the drawing notes into Haikus. The plans didn't go out this way...but I had fun...(and I realize that I have not maintained the spiritual aspect behind the idea of the Haiku...but cut me some slack: I'm dealing with drawings of water and sewer lines... :) )

***
Existing guardrail

gravel to match existing

see standard detail

***

Double doors go here

dead bolt with dummy handle

solid door anchors

***

saw cut and tack coat

seal finished edges here

only crushed backfill

***

Note: plumb in drop tube

to drain oil from genset

note all louvers size

***
and a note to the cad tech who made the drawing:

Like warm winter snow

lineweights are heavy and soft;

makes plan hard to read
***
x,
L

Madness and the Hamsterwheel

Recently reading Truman Capote's *In Cold Blood* and there was Belligham as a significant place for Perry Smith, one of the two ciminals and allegedly the murder of all 4 Klutters. Throw in the DC sniper duo and The Ham starts to look much spookier than it ever did on my daily lovely walks from Fairhaven Creek Apartments on the woodsy trail down to Village Books.

Besides Gary Snyder's poetry, have any of you come across other Ham references in the Lit/Cinema world? I'd love to know for future planning of a Ham unit in a literary places of the PNW I'll teach in the future and on which I'd be interested in a collaborative construction of the syllabus.

An Update on John Pell

Cathy sent me a link to John and Sarah Pell's baby blog, so if you want an update on them click below:
http://www.babypell.blogspot.com/

Here's are the pictures I have . . .

more pics

Pics from Lynda

A Heartening Update from Tim

Having just received an email from Tim and Amy K, I thought I would notify everyone that they just had a new baby boy. They have decided to name him Zachariah Samuel and he is healthy!!!

You may not know that a little over a year ago, Amy was pregnant with their first child, who, because of complications with the pregnancy, had underdeveloped lungs. Tragically, the baby died shortly after birth, and so the fact that she was able to carry this baby to term and that he is wonderful and healthy is a truly amazing miracle. As far as I know, Amy is doing great too. I have sent Tim and Amy the URL for this blog, so if you get a chance or feel so inclined, post a note for them.

Included is a picture of Zachariah below.

Congrats Tim and Amy, we love you and are so happy for you.
KPJ

FROM JAN

Greetings from HELL...

Before I begin talking about myself and the insanity of living in 110 degree heat, I want to say how incredibly happy I am that we have a place to gather together again! {Thank you for setting this in motion, Lynda and Andrew and Kyle} If you had a dime for every time I have thought about you/missed you/wished I could see your face - well let's say that you'd finally have some much deserved dough in your pockets. I love hearing about your lives and accomplishments and am in awe of every one of you. But then again, none of it is a surprise to me. You are the most incredible group of folks I have run across in my lifetime, and considering the places I've been, that's saying a lot.

It's 6 o'clock here in central NC and the temp has finally dropped down to 94. For pretty much the last two weeks, the temp has fluctuated from 94 to 110. For a week solid, it was 108-110 every day I left my office and with the humidity added in, the heat index was pushing close to 120. For three days we were told to literally not go outdoors if we did not have to. Imagine. Remind me why I came back to the South? Oh yeah, that sister thing...

Amy and I manage to get together about every 2 months or so and I kept my neice and nephew for 2 weeks over summer break. We had a blast, although it made us miss Nathaniel terribly. Mary and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last March and have discussed coming back to the Pacific NW for a Canadian wedding... maybe this spring??? We also have talked about moving up there if things keep going the way they have been, so maybe we'll end up being Elizabeth and Carol's neighbors after all. And someone please tell me where to get my hands on this amazing book of hers? {Like I have time to read right now}

I landed a full time teaching position at Central Carolina Community College and have begun my second year. Part of the job is teaching inmates at the medium security prison nearby. Incredible experience. I also teach two nights a week at NCSU in a very interesting First Year Writing Program. But I love CCCC the most. I am teaching American Lit and Creative Writing for the first time this semester. With a week of classes finished today, I can already tell you that this term will be very memorable; lots of students who have never heard of the writers I assigned and two kids in my Oral Communications class admitted they did not know who John Lennon was when I was preparing to show them a documentary on his life {The US vs John Lennon - fantastic work}. So, I am feeling ancient. And in John's own immortal words...nobody told me there'd be days like these. Sort of like the Cyndi Lauper apparel thing.

I have not been able to write a word since I landed back here - how do you teach full time and manage that? I have a ten month contract and was off in June/July, but honestly was so exhausted from the academic year that I did absolutely nothing the entire time. I swore I was going to prep for my new courses and get organized, finish unpacking finally finally, and go to the beach for the first time. Did I accomplish any of that? Not. However, the one other good thing about being so busy is that I somehow managed to lose almost 30 pounds without even trying. Yeah.

If you have not gone to see Hairspray, for god's sake get going! It's the best feel good movie I have seen in years. And for those of you who have enjoyed it - did you catch the two times that John Travolta made references to Pulp Fiction? Love it.

Rose, read MIDDLESEX by Jeffrey Eugenides. Luscious language. Incredible story. And enjoy the other two I added to your list. One is sci-fi by a brilliant woman I met in Tacoma many years ago and just learned that she recently died at 53 - horrible loss. And Alice's latest...

Okay, I'll stop rambling now. And as they say down here, give a holler some time!

Office #910-814-8815 but don't forget the 3 hour time difference.

miss you guys and gals,
jan

From Caroline

Hi All,

Well, I know I'm rarely a participant in group emails,
not for lack of interest (I often seem to find myself
in places with few cyber possibilities!). Great to
hear about what everyone is doing these days--it's
hard to believe we all dispersed more than 2 years
ago. I must say it makes me feel a bit old!

But, to preserve my youth and challenge my sanity, I,
too, have decided to return to grad school. This time
I'll be pursuing a PhD in biology, looking at beak
deformities in Alaskan birds. There seems to be an
ever-growing cluster of more than 30 species of mostly
resident birds with gross deformities (pic
attached--it's not digitally altered, really) in
Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Those of you who
venture from the confines of the too-often windowless
offices where grad students are housed, keep an eye
out for strange beaks, especially in crows, as they
seem to be particularly susceptible (Rose, tell John
and his bird-nerd friends!).

As usual, I've decided to pursue the degree in as
unconventional of a manner as possible, hopefully
largely based from the remote cabin Pat and I are
building outside of Haines, AK. The work is hugely
labor-intensive, but moving along decently. The logs
are all stacked, loft completed, purlins set, and we
started running roof sheathing yesterday. Hopefully
we'll have it roofed if not completely closed in
before heading back to Anchorage at the end of the
month. Next year we might even get a solar panel so
we'd have power (anyone know anything about satellite
internet?). I just boated in this morning and hence
have a few minutes of email connection.

I'm still writing, though not as much as I'd like. A
few thesis and non-thesis essays were published this
year, but I've been slow about submitting recently. On
a very non-literary note, there's an article coming
out in Birding magazine next month in case you want to
learn more about the "freak-a-dees" of the north!

Hope everyone is doing well and give us a shout if
you're in the neighborhood (or even anywhere near
AK!). Thanks for the updates!

Caroline

From Sheri

It's good to hear from everyone! I'm living in Salt Lake City, wedged between the enormous mountains of the Wasatch Front and the Great Salt Lake. The city is wonderful, bicycle-friendly streets and a very nice music and film scene. In fact, my neighbor is actually a documentary filmmaker. He did This Divided State, which is about politics and controversy surrounding Michael Moore's visit to Utah Valley State College, which is how I will segue into the career portion of this update. I combine two adjunct positions at UVSC and Salt Lake Community College to create what would be one low-paying, full-time job. I love it. It is the best job, although the reading can get tiresome, and I sometimes read too many disappointing essays in a row and lose my faith in humanity. Otherwise, it is rewarding and fun. The English faculty at UVSC are some of the best writing teachers I have ever been around. They are a very smart, very passionate, very supportive group of people who have the ability to inspire desire and passion in even the most apathetic students.

On a more personal note, I fell madly, stupidly in love this spring while taking French lessons for fun. Following that, I studied French in France for a month and a week. Most of my time was spent on the beach or a pub in Nice with a rowdy group of opinionated European students. A highlight was discussing French philosophy with a university student and getting his perspective (and the correct pronunciation of some of those names). After France, I visited a friend in his hometown of Helsinki, Finland for a week. I did not want to leave.

Now, I'm recovering from my travels and preparing to teach way more comp courses this fall than anyone should ever have to teach. I must agree with what some of the others have said, that the instruction at WWU definitely
prepared me to be a contender in teaching and talking about comp studies in the work that I have done so far. I look forward to hearing from the rest of you.
~Sheri

From Rose

Hi friends near and far,
Wonderful to hear from you. John and I are doing well.
He sends his regards.

We live in Ballard (same as Jim- who still has the
cutest kid ever). I can't wait for Lynda to move to
Seattle. And Don, I'm looking forward to seeing you in
person too. I'm sorry that I have not been better
about keeping in touch with you and everyone else. I
ran into Blaine at the Zoo tunes concert, and it made
my week. By the way, congrats to Blaine- who got a
tenure track teaching job in Tacoma. I saw Tara De
Jong (from the class below us) yesterday. She has the
cutest brand new house in West Seattle and is teaching
middle school.

Anne, I have a work thing in October in Denver. Are
you still there? If so, let's try to see each other
while I am in town.

I'm reading Elizabeth's book. It is fantastic. I can't
think of much to say because it seems like a finished
book already -all it needs is a cover. You should all
read it.

Since grad school I have had 3 very different jobs....
Right now I am doing marketing/proposal writing for an
engineering consulting firm. How I ended up there
would take too long to explain.

But (as will come as no surprise to any of you) my
dream is to return to school in the not too distant
future. Right now, I am looking into pediatric
optometry, and am trying to set up an internship for
myself on the weekends this Fall. I took Anatomy and
Phys. It was, well, exhausting working full time and
taking that course, but I got through it. John helped
me through the neuro section:) I still have some other
pre-reqs to take, but I think I'll do an internship
first before jumping into night classes.

John is wrapping up his PhD. We think he will graduate
sometime next summer. Time flies. Soon he'll be
starting to look for post-docs. Unfortunately, we must
leave Seattle for his next step. So visit us this year
while we are in the NW!
I will keep you posted on where we're heading when we
know. It's exciting and a bit scary.

Anyway, make plans to visit Seattle soon, and call me
when you are here. If you are in the vicinity, you
should still call because I will drive to see you.
XOXO
Rose


PS I saw the dinosaurs at the Smithsonian last weekend
in DC (I was there for a wedding). They were so cool!

PPS Please send books recommendations my way. I have
lots of reading time during my commute. I need some
fresh book ideas.

From Lindsay

Hello all,

I’ve enjoyed reading about everyone else’s “after WWU” experiences and thought I’d throw in my two cents. I’m about to begin my third year in the PhD program at the University of New Hampshire. I take my last required course this fall (but will probably end up taking another in the spring) and take my qualifying exams in March, which means it’s almost dissertation time. It finally feels like there is an end insight! As much as I love being a grad student, I’m ready to move onto the next phase.

Overall, I’ve been pretty happy with the program here. I’m working with some great professors and the grad student community is collaborative and supportive. The only real problem I’ve encountered is that the department in general is pretty anti-theory, which means that theory is not incorporated into any of the courses outside of a theory course that is offered once per year. While theory isn’t necessarily something I ever intended to specialize in, it has played a part in most of the work of done over the last couple of years, particular gender and cultural studies. I have found that there are a number of professors here who specialize in different areas of theory, but I need to seek them out and work independently on projects with them, which can be a bit frustrating. Otherwise, though, I’ve found a program that is very much like Western. It’s relatively small with professors with a wide array of interests who are really engaged with the grad student community. It’s been great.

I’ve been teaching comp here for the last couple of years and finally get to start teaching an intro to lit course this fall, a women’s studies course next fall, and American lit courses at some point. This should be the last I see of comp at UNH and I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go.

Pat and I are still living in Portsmouth NH, a hotspot for tourists wanting to “experience” New England charm. There are things we like about this part of the country, but we are counting the days until we can get back to the Northwest, or at least the western part of the country. The winters are long (the university closed on 3 different days in April because of snow and ice) and unbearably cold, not to mention that outside of Boston (1 hour south of us), there are no cities here. It’s largely a collection of small towns and we start to get a little stir crazy.

We were able to buy a home last summer, which has helped to make Portsmouth feel a bit more like home. Housing in New England is not cheap, so we got into a fixer upper without realizing what exactly that meant. Structurally, the place is pretty sound, but an older couple had been living in it for 40 years before we bought it and the interior needed a lot of work. There wasn’t a wall that didn’t have wallpaper, much of it fuzzy and moldy, except for the room with wood paneling. The carpets were molding in places and the yard completely overrun. Needless to say, it’s kept us busy. The wallpaper is all down and the carpet ripped out, but every project we take on takes about 5 times longer than expected and costs three times as much.

We’re currently in the process of remodeling the only bathroom in the house, taking it down to the studs and replacing everything. We’re hoping that all of this work pays off when we sell in a few years.

The house did allow us to get our puppy Payton, a lab and border collie (among other things) mix, who is just about the best thing ever. We got her at 12 weeks from the pound and she’s now just over a year old.

I’m glad to hear everyone is doing so well. Thanks for sharing and keep in touch.

Lindsay

From Kate

howdy all,

i'd claim to have been sent to jail, but y'all might actually believe me, so i'll (try) to tell the truth.

i'm finishing my MFA at Virginia Commonwealth U. in poetry and have been working as associate editor of Blackbird, an online journal of literature and the art. it's been madness, but i've gotten to know a lot of cool writers. i have a hard time maintaining my own filing system, so it was an organizational challenge i appear to have surmounted. this fall i teach honors poetry and fiction while working on my poetry thesis. (i'm done with coursework--(hooray Kyle) no book out yet, but some
publications.

my main man matt and i plan to move west in december, when we both graduate--(he's in nursing school, and loves sticking needles and tubes in folks). Flagstaff AZ and Bend OR are most likely.i am so NOT an east coast academy type.

the highlights of my summer were seeing Arlo Guthrie play in a small mennonite community in the mountains, getting naked with elizabeth at the nude beach at b'ham, and taking two city girls camping (they insisted on holding my hands in the tent, making me wish i was a mommy).

great to hear everyone is still gettin' it done. congrats on new homes (Jessica and Kyle), new jobs, marriages (Elizabeth), and happy kids (Jim).

Stay in touch!

L, Kate

From Elizabeth

Okay, as most of you know… I was not, in fact, found guilty for perjury. The only thing I’m guilty of these days is being incredibly happy.

While I too miss the intellectual rigors of being in school, I find that working 6-8 hours on my own work every day (often longer on the weekends) is quite refreshing. And I am well positioned to attain my insane goal of reading 150 books this year, including vaguely dipping into the suggested reading list for the subject-test GRE in case I ever decide to torture myself with a PhD program.

Although I have yet to completely revise the novel (I’ll say it’s maybe 80% of the way there), I am also working on several other projects. In the spring, I completed more than sixty poems and have assembled 55 of them into a collection (Money for Sunsets) that is currently under consideration with several pretty decent presses. Several of these poems have either been published in journals or are forthcoming. One of them got printed on a T-shirt and ran around Greenlake in June (and can be found online in several places because of participation in the Running Poets of Greenlake). I am also currently revising my thesis short-story collection, As Long As Someone’s There When I Get In to begin sending it out in the fall, and am in the beginning-to-middle stages of a novella about living in wartime in a country that doesn’t really feel it, which is loosely based on Stein’s World War II-era Wars I Have Seen. Recent work of mine can be found in a few other places (recently published or forthcoming), including Redivider, Pebble Lake Review, Turnrow, Knockout. I was also shortlisted this year for Rose Metal Press’s Short Short Fiction Chapbook Contest, judged by Ron Carlson.

Carol and I, after moving in together a little over a year ago have recently decided to move into slightly bigger digs. As we both do most of our work from home (well, all of it in my case), we thought it might be useful to have studies that did not “double” as anything else. We currently live in the Broadway Park neighborhood of Bellingham (directly across from the park,
in fact), and just bought a house up the street about three blocks where we will move once the bathroom has been fixed and the garage converted into a studio.

We were married in December in Vancouver, BC (since we’re second-class citizens in the states). The ceremony was small and lovely. It took place in a beautiful old Victorian home situated a stone’s throw from the water, with just the two of us, the marriage commissioner, and two of our close friends who drove up from Portland to witness. Both our families were upset not to have been invited, but we agreed to have a big wedding if it’s ever legal here. To cap off the weekend, we got to see a knife fight up close in a 7-11 in downtown Vancouver. It wasn’t really funny then to think we might die so soon after getting married, but I did take pictures of the 7-11 the next day to include in the album. Oh, and we’ve also applied for permanent residency in Canada (a first step towards immigration). It takes 18-24 months to get all the paperwork done. So, just in time for the next election we’ll likely be eligible to leave if we want to. A comforting thought.

On the kid front, for now it’s just the dogs. Our 14 year old Corgi died in July and we’ve recently adopted a cattle dog mix with one blue and one brown eye. In addition, we also have a blind/epileptic Spitz, who actually plays a pretty good game of fetch. They take up much less time than real kids, even with the daily hikes anywhere from 3 to 10 miles. However, they don’t look nearly as cute in a tutu.

Best,
Elizabeth

From Cookie

Recently, you may know, I was found guilty of conspiracy and perjury for lying to a grand jury about my friends' involvement in a 2001 shooting outside the Hot 97 studios in Manhattan. I claimed not to have known that my
manager, and another friend were at the scene, despite video footage showing all three of us exiting the building.

On July 3, I was released from the Philadelphia Federal Detention Center. Hundreds of fans and supporters gathered around the prison as I made my release, holding a "Welcome Home" balloon and a dozen roses. After I waved to my fans and gave speeches to news reporters, I left in a Rolls Royce Phantom with a driver, telling the crowds, "Thank you, I love you all. I
was subsequently welcomed home by five different parties, including one hosted by VIBE magazine.

I am now looking for a new record deal. At this time Atlantic Records would like me to continue under their label, but I’m not so sure. According to my lawyers, Atlantic is offering me a whole new deal, but Interscope is trying to buy my contract.

There was also discussion about a possible re-release of The Naked Truth and I have released a re-mastered version of "The Game's In Trouble" to radio. I also recorded a mixtape track entitled "Brooklyn 4 Life" with Maino and Papoose.

I gave my first post-prison performance at VH1: Hip-Hop Honors where I paid tribute to MC Lyte. I performed "Lyte As A Rock" for Lyte's tribute. MC Lyte has paved the way for many rappers, including myself, and I was honored to show respect for such an amazing woman.

I am also slated to appear in two new movies, including one about my life. I have both a clothing and shoe line, which will be available soon. I have also signed a lucrative book deal about my life.

I can currently be heard on the remix to the popular Diddy song "Last Night feat. Keyshia Cole. When rumors surfaced about the remix, many believed I wouldn’t end up on the song, but they were proved wrong when it leaked. This shows the first time me & Diddy have worked together in many years, after our falling out.

In May of this year, a popular documentary surfaced from my former manager titled "Life After Death: The Movie" defending my convicted perjury and reprimanded my former Junior Mafia group members for testifying against me and other members of our estranged crew.

I made a surprise performance with Diddy and Keyshia Cole for remix to the "Last Night" at the 2007 BET Awards. Both me and Diddy have agreed we may be working together again in the future; he may sign me to Bad Boy records, but we haven’t worked it all out yet. I’m also working on my 5th studio album to be released sometime before Christmas. I don’t know what I’ll call it yet, but I’ll let y’all know when I do. Any suggestions?

Sincerely,
Elizabeth "Cookie E." Colen

From Jessica

Hi all,

So good to hear from Lynda and Kyle! I've been really busy this summer and I'm not even sure with what. I just know that I feel pulled here and there and everywhere all at the same time. Lynda knows this well as she sent me an email about a month ago that I have yet to reply to. Sorry, Lynda. I promise to renew my efforts at keeping in touch.

Paul and I bought a house that we moved into at the end of March. We weren't really planning to buy a house until this fall but the perfect one came along and so we snatched it up. We're now in the midst of home improvements. The to-do list is a mile long and every homeowner I meet tells me I may as well give up because the list will never get any shorter. I refuse to believe it! Someday the house will magically be transformed into exactly what we want and we'll be able to use a weekend for actual relaxation instead of trips to the Home Depot. Right?

I'm still enjoying work. I really do think I work in an ideal place. I write all the time, I get to use my brain and I'm surrounded by thoughtful, sharp people who always have something interesting going on in their lives. It's been fairly hectic lately because I took on some additional responsibilities when a co-worker left the company. I'm doing my best to get that under control and not work too much.

Paul and I adopted a little kitten from the Humane Society. He was only 2 months old and 2 pounds when we got him. Oh my word. So cute. I've always been a dog person, never owned a cat. So it's taking some getting used to. I find that I'm a little too worried about him because I'm just not used to a pet that's so independent and self-sufficient.

I miss you all and can't wait to hear from more of you.

Jessica

From Jim

Excellent idea, Lynda. And please do look us up when you're settled in.
We live in Ballard, not too awful far from Rose.

So, where to begin.

I finally finished my WWU degree this spring. I commuted from Seattle
for two morning classes in Winter quarter 06, then another evening class
Spring 06, took the translation exam Fall of 06, a defended my this in
February. My favorite comment during the defense was Bill Lyne telling
me I had managed to sidestep the cliches that were screaming out
around me.

With the degree complete, I started looking for work, something that
would either fit around the childcare schedule or justify paying for
full-time care. A short four months of searching later, I took the job of
PR Manager for Seattle Children's Theatre. This was my first week, and I
think it will be a good fit. Works around my schedule, leaves me time
to write, great organization.

I've been trying to stay artistically active, but it can be tough with
this whole daddying business. I wrote for 14/48 again a couple of times
this year, and published a pretty good story in a pretty crappy online
magazine (for whom I may be doing a reading at the Rendezvous 8/24 -
I'll keep Seattle folks posted), and have recently taken up blogging on
arts/lit/culture for RIVET Magazine
(http://www.rivetmagazine.org/author/Jim%20Jewell). And I've got a bunch
or stuff up at www.jimjewell.com, a sit I put toogether for the job
search.

I've been reading an assload of graphic novels ever since I discovered
just how many the library has and how easy it is to have them delivered
to the local branch that is less than a block away. If you ever get
the notion, I highly recommend the non-superhero titles "Ex Machina" and
"Y:The Last Man" and "Fables" and, by my man Douglas Rushkoff,
"Testament." It is a very cinematic storytelling style, and a venue for stories
that wouldn't work in other forms.

Olivia is four now, and has a major attitude. Wicked smart, reads a
lot, knows exactly how to push Daddy's buttons and drive him insane. She's
really into ballet and has just recently been getting into drama with
a couple camps and workshops. There are pics of her at
livvielivin.blogspot.com, though I have been horribly remiss in posting new ones this
summer.

Nothing else terribly exciting to pass on. I miss you all, and am
terribly jealous of any and all of you that got to stay in academia. Never
felt at home mucha anywhere but in a classroom. Perhaps someday I'll get
enough stories published to actually merit a teaching job.

Glad to hear about some of y'all, and hope to hear from more.

Much love,
JJ

From Don

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

An Update on K, P, and Bruchi

I am starting my 3rd year of doctoral work, prepping for my qualifying examinations and working on several pieces for publication. I am still an editorial assistant at JAC (subscribe if you don't already), am now a program assistant in the WPA at ISU, and am teaching an internship course so that my coursework will be complete (!) at the end of the term.

I am also just finishing a neat website that you all need to check out:

http://lilt.ilstu.edu/theory/index.htm

that houses audio interviews with some of the most influential philosophers and cultural theorists of our time period. The site still has some kinks, but we are working on it, so be nice: it isn't perfect yet.

P''s good, just finished her masters and has started her PhD in EAF (Education Administration and Foundations). She is still teaching at a local elementary school. Bruchi (our beagle) is also good. Normal sucks, but that is central Illinois for you. We got out of town several times this summer to stay sane, and one trip up to Chicago was particularly fun. So dang humid though (bleh).

Here's the URL to our Blog if you want to read up on us:
www.bruchi.blogspot.com

I will look forward to reading everyone else's post. Below are updated pictures of us and the hound.

A Beginning . . .

As per Andrew's request, I established this blog space for the WWU english class of 2003 to post updates, musings, pictures, and things related to their life and the lives of those they care about. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to hear from you all when I find myself in a position where there is a considerable absence of genuine community. I miss you very much.

I hope that you will all post the update emails sent in the last month as posts to the blog. Talk to you soon!

p.s. In order for this blog to begin on the right foot I have posted an image below of the Iron Goddess of Mercy.